ORS

Short and sweet. John Lackey is an odd looking dude. Maybe it's the pre-dental revolution UK teeth or the turbo-mullet, I don't know, but he gives me the heeby-jeebies. Looks like a dude that saves his boogers. Don't lose to a guy that saves his boogers. Win. teh. game.

Who's got the G/T tonight?

3-run dinger tonight.

Mussina's lost his location, he's actually throwing strikes now.

And Cano runs into one. That should be enough for Moose and his 27" plate.

It's no anomaly to me. He's getting the Greg Maddux strikezone. Greg Maddux exibited dominance close to the level of Pedro with 4" on each side of the plate when he couldn't throw the ball through a pane of glass.

And they don't show the next looking K, go figure.

Haha, YES usually doesn't show it when the overhead cam shows their guy getting a gift from the ump. Moose is getting an absurd plate tonight.

The strikezone Moose got against Cust made Greg Maddux blush.

I could buy it a little more if the pitches from the AB in question were closer to the heart of the strikezone. I personally thought pitches 2 and 3 were balls. And, since that game on July 6, he's gone 11/22 with 2 dingers. Kind of tough to say the guy is tanking. Accusations of tanking it are serious business. If you are right, well, you can't abide that type of behavior regardless of circumstance. It's poison. If you are wrong, I don't suspect the accused takes it too well and the relationship will sour beyond repair very quickly. The FO needs to sit down with Manny and address his recent concerns along with Lobel's story. And they need to do it yesterday. If this festers, it will only get worse.

True, but he is a big RH bat. Fenway won't reduce those home numbers much, and his road parks in the AL East aren't as penalizing as Petco, Dodger Stadium, and whatever they are calling it now in SF. The caveat is that Holliday isn't a free-agent until the '09 offseason. To get him this offseason, they have to give up talent. Manny Ramirez just costs money, and they can get him for only one year if they wish to wait for Holliday to become a FA. Taking that into consideration, I think the best bet is to go for another year with Manny and worry about Holliday next year.

We don't know the specifics of what is making him feel this way, so I hope people can steer clear of defending his comments or the front office. That said, as far as negotiating strategy goes, this is not a smart move by Manny. If he wants his option picked up, and he has to because he won't make $20M from anyone else next year, then he shouldn't imply the ownership group has been disingenuous in their dealing with him. On the other hand, maybe he doesn't want the option picked up so he can go elsewhere, and this is part of the plan to make retaining him undesirable. Tough to tell what's going on with that Fruit Loop.

They are keeping the dimensions the same.

On the topic of the thread, I think the Dodgers will be in the market for pitching and I wouldn't be shocked to see the Rays get another bat.

I'm skeptical they'll get picks for Giambi, Abreu, or Pettitte. Giambi is a huge risk to accept arb. He's making $22M this year, and you don't take a pay cut in arb. Given his hard suck in multiple years of this contract, he won't get offers anywhere near that level of pay. Pettitte is more likely to either retire or resign with the Yankees than he is to play elsewhere. I think they need to bring Abreu back.

Re: the opinons, whatever the hell those are... The good: 1. Yep, they are in better shape than I would have guessed if you told me Ortiz would have been out for over a month (and sucked for the first month). 2. Francona's "getting the ball to Papelbon" is a bit of misnomer. He's had several opportunities to either reduce or eliminate the opponents chances in a close game on the road by using Papelbon before the 9th with a lead or in the 9th without the lead and failed to do so every time, and then subsequently used Papelbon the next day with a 4+ run lead. Horrible usage of the best reliever by leverage. He gets no nod from me there. And, while Oki has been bad, he hasn't entered fluke territory yet. That will happen when he can throw his split-change for strikes and still gets hit like he is now. It was the pitch that made him so effective last year and early this year. For some reason, he completely lost the feel for it in May. The bad: 1. See #2 from "The good". 2. Brian Fuentes would be a nice addition, but what does he cost? 3. Sac bunts are outs. The game state expected runs matrix predicts 0.89 runs with a runner on 1st with no outs, and 0.68 with a runner on 2nd with one out. Now, what that doesn't show is that the likelihood of scoring one run is greater in the second scenario. Thus, it makes sense to do it when all you need/want is one run. In most such situations, multiple runs are more desirable/necessary. As for taking 3rd on a single, that is entirely situation dependent. The runner, fielder, and location of the single determine the appropriate amount of aggressiveness. Why risk making an out at 3rd when you can have a runner at 2nd without question? Carry on.

But, unless Trot kept his old helmet, he'll have a new clean one. A clean helmet saps Trot of his Dirt Dog powers, so if they make the move, they'll need to get crackin' on breaking in a helmet for him. Theo, we need some pine tar, stat!

The mental midgetry on display here is entertaining. The Daily News coverage of Papelbon's comments are completely disingenuous. They took a candid quote, diced it for the slant they wanted, and went with the most controversial coverage they could have in order to generate controversy (read: sales). Every non-NY take on this has been that the article went overboard, Papelbon respectfully praised and deferred to Rivera, and he has every right to be pissed at how the story was handled, even if it was his own naivette/stupidity to have uttered what he did without a skeptical eye toward how it would be portrayed. How dare he be so trusting as to not suspect that the media might have an agenda other than the reporting of facts? Appalling.

How do you figure? Varitek only took the field, and he made no errors. If Navarro doesn't chuck the ball into CF, the AL wins 3-2 in 9 innings.

Sure they do. Lars Anderson is still about 2 years out, but he has big time power potential. He's not close, but he's close enough to preclude a desperate move, and he affords them a chance to keep Youk at 1B while Lowell plays his contract out.

Papelbon wants to close a game in which he is playing. In other news, Alaskan winters are cold, water is wet, and Jacko thinks the Yankees drafted 6 HOF'ers this year. He's a nincompoop for how he gets this message across, but it's not earth shattering news. He wants the ball, yet at the same time gets why Rivera will get it. Non-story.

Speak for yourself, not for me. Teixeira hasn't been a player worthy of "Mark Teixeira!" hype in about 2 1/2 years. Is he good? Certainly. However, over the course of the years that Youk has been a full-time player, he's only been about 1-1.5 wins better. That's improvement, but is it 10x salary improvement? I'd suggest it isn't. I think the ~ $20M it will take to keep Teixeria here long term, about $15M of which will be marginal additional cost, can be better spent. Build a real bullpen. Sign one of the frontline starters available this year. Etc. That is one large chunk of the Sox spending pie on a relatively minor upgrade. And, that upgrade is looking dependent upon Youk fading in the 2nd half, because as of right now, he's been about a win better this year.

Cora is a statue in the field. Despite his steady hands, he should not be used as a late inning defensive replacement.

You need to see more of this site than the game threads. Crespo's mocking you won't make the mods bat an eyelash. Did you report it with righteous indignation? It appears you are a bit sensitive to taunts. I would suggest that you don't continue to post "I told you so" posts about the offense when they are in the middle of a rough patch. When they do struggle for a short stretch, you are certain to appear and pat yourself on the back for having the foresight to anticipate this. This puts a big target on your back. Especially when the fact remains that, viewed on the season as a whole, this is one of the best offenses in the game (even while missing Ortiz for over a month). It makes ridiculing you quite easy. In short, if you don't like being taunted, stop giving people reasons.